


holding fast (with sharp realization)

by sansets



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Assumed Relationship, Christmas Fluff, Meet the Family, Multi, also this is set during Christmas 2017, because Lovett and Tommy being proud of their boyfriend is EVERYTHING to me, but I'm handwaving it, but don't worry Tommy and Evangeline build the most BEAUTIFUL ship in a bottle you've ever seen!, it's just not on screen lol, the dogs are totally metaphors, weirdly I don't think the ship in the bottle is a metaphor, which would technically be before Ronan was officially a Pulitzer nominee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21736975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansets/pseuds/sansets
Summary: Everyone and their mom thought that Tommy was already dating Ronan and Lovett. It's shame no one told the three of them that. (Featuring gratuitous Farrow family cameos, a lot of discussions about building a ship in a bottle that never gets built, and more tropes than you can shake a stick at.)
Relationships: Ronan Farrow/Jon Lovett/Tommy Vietor
Comments: 13
Kudos: 71
Collections: Crooked Secret Santa 2019





	holding fast (with sharp realization)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CrookedFOTP](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrookedFOTP/gifts).

> Thanks so much to A for being my sounding board and making this so much better than it otherwise would have been! Title from Vienna Teng's "Atheist Christmas Carol." Written for crookedfotp's prompts of "banter" and "first Christmas together at Mia's farm."

It all starts when Tommy’s sister’s in-laws invite his family to go on a festive holiday cruise with them. 

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Taylor wheedles at him while Tommy attempts to figure out a polite way of saying that he’d rather be laid up with the flu than be stuck with her mother-in-law on a floating disease laboratory on Christmas Day. “I swear, you don’t ever have to talk to Donna if you don’t want to, and Mom is going to miss you so much if you don’t come. And before you ask, I checked, the cruise is pet-friendly, so you can even bring your new puppy!”

“I have plans,” Tommy says, making a face at Lucca, willing his sister not to ask any further questions.

“_Really_,” she says skeptically. “Didn’t Emily ban you from visiting her family in Ohio after you spent the whole time quoting Mark Twain at them?” 

“Her sister thought I was hilarious,” Tommy protests, trying to think fast. “No, I promised Dylan I’d show Evangeline how to build a boat in a bottle, so I’m joining Ronan and Lovett up at the farm,” Tommy improvises wildly. He hopes that Ronan and Lovett won’t mind covering for him. He feels bad asking for anything after crashing with them for the nearly nine months that he’s lived in LA, but it’s not like yet another favor is going to change how indebted he feels to them.

Taylor’s response is Tommy’s first indication that something isn’t quite lining up the way he thought it would. “Does this mean that you’re finally going to tell Mom about them? I’m so happy for you, I guess that’s as good a reason as any to miss out on the Caribbean— SHIT. Bear, NO. DROP IT—” and Tommy hears a click before he can ask Taylor what she meant by any of that. Even if he hadn’t done as good as job as he thought covering up his feelings for the two of them, it’s not like having a crush was something that he’d be telling his mom about at the age of 37. 

Tommy, who knows that he’s going to overstay his welcome at their house eventually, walks down the stairs with Lucca to ask if Ronan and Lovett would mind pretending that Tommy was with them at the farm. (Tommy had tried to move out to an apartment while he was looking for a more permanent place in LA. He’d actually tried a few times, but every time Lovett kept protesting that “it isn’t very practical to throw your money away on renting if you know you’re going to buy. Aren’t you WASPs supposed to be better at money than that?” And it is just really nice, pretending that they want him around, and Tommy is too selfish to want to give that up before it’s necessary.) 

“Why pretend?” Ronan asks. “Isn’t Favreau going to be with Emily’s family in Cincinnati? Do you really want to spend Christmas pretending you’re with loved ones instead of actually being with people who love you?”

While Tommy attempts to make his heart start beating again, Lovett adds, “And Evangeline has been pestering me about building boats in bottles for months, ever since you showed her the one you built with your dad. Come out with us, I think we get a discount on the dog flying fee if there’s more than one of them.” Lovett pauses to smirk at Lucca’s continued assault on Pundit’s dignity. “Also Lucca might die of sadness if you took Pundit away from her.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees, his heart in his throat. “I think Pundit would probably miss Lucca too.”

And so, against his better judgement, Tommy lets Lovett and Ronan talk him into spending Christmas with them out at Mia’s farm. To remind himself not to read too much into it, Tommy turns the conversation to his latest house tour. “This one had an HOA that dictated what kind of blinds I was allowed to buy for my windows,” he says morosely. “I don’t even care what I put on my windows, I just know that I don’t want Betsy from the neighborhood watch telling on me when I do pick something!”

Lovett, exchanging glances with Ronan, breaks in to say “You’re welcome here as long as you want, you know that. Come on, help me overrule Ronan on what we’re ordering for dinner, you know what kind of weird combos he picks when he’s on deadline.”

“It’s just when I’m being hunted by Harvey Weinstein that I have steak tartare and tuna salad for dinner!” Ronan protests over Lovett’s peals of laughter. “Where would we even order from that I could get those two things at the same time!”

“Did becoming a print reporter turn you into a werewolf?” Lovett asks. “What is with all of the protein!”

“Protein is important!” Tommy protests on Ronan’s behalf. “It enables Pulitzer nominations, obviously.” 

Tommy’s second indication that this isn’t going to go quite the way that he thought is when he tells Favs that he’s going to spend Christmas out at the farm, and Favs practically starts glowing. 

“That’s such a big step, I’m so happy for you, Tom.” 

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Tommy protests as Favs keeps smiling at him. “You’re going to break something in your face if you don’t stop smiling at me.” Elijah picks that moment to pull them both into a meeting about the new YouTube channel, and between that and the new attacks on the ACA, Tommy doesn’t really have a chance to think about how weird his sister and Favs are being. His infatuation with Jon Lovett and Ronan Farrow notwithstanding, there’s nothing going on in his life that should have prompted this sort of a response to the news that he was spending Christmas with anyone in particular, especially not them.

Tommy’s final indication that something happening is way outside of his control or knowledge is when Mia shows him and Lovett and Ronan to the room that they’ll be sharing for the duration of the holiday. A room that contains only one bed. A room that is accompanied by a wink from Mia and a comment that it is “pretty far away from any of the kids’ rooms, so you don’t need to worry about the noise.”

The three of them stare at each other in confusion after Mia closes the door behind her.

“Did your mom just imply that we’d be having loud threesome sex?” Lovett asks, sounding dazed.

“Either that, or we’ve all just had a group hallucination,” Tommy agrees, feeling like he’s been run over by a truck.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Ronan says, looking more flustered than Tommy would have expected. It’s not like Ronan is the one who is going to be sharing a bed with two off-limits crushes. “It’s got to be some really weird joke, right?”

Lovett and Tommy look at each other after Ronan leaves the room. Tommy looks at the bed. He looks back up and catches Lovett looking at the bed. The big antique bed that almost certainly would squeak with every move - Tommy feels his brain seize up. “I think I’m going to go see if I can find Evangeline and teach her about making boats in bottles,” Tommy says, grabbing Lucca’s leash, using his long years of practice to move his brain away from contemplating Lovett and Ronan in a bed.

“I’ll go see if Quincy needs a hand wrapping anything this year,” Lovett says, sounding a little breathless. “She really seemed to like my wrapping skills last year.”

Dylan is apparently out picking Evangeline up from a friend’s house, so instead of getting to escape Tommy receives a hug from Isaiah, who tells him, “Welcome to the family,” and a firm handshake from Fletcher, who corners him for nearly 15 minutes outside in the cold, opining on the merits of different non-denominational commitment ceremonies. After nearly getting frostbite while talking with Fletcher, Tommy figures that it might be best to go and hide in their room with Lucca while Lovett is out. Some quiet processing time seems in order.

Tommy opens the door to the bedroom and pauses as Lovett and Ronan look up from where they are sitting and talking on the bed. 

“Get in here,” Ronan hisses. “My mom just tried to tell me about how she and Andre were ‘into free love’ and she hoped that our relationship was more stable than that. If I have to deal with that knowledge, then so do you!”

Tommy walks in, shuts the door behind him, and slips down to sit on the floor next to where Lucca has already leapt on top of Pundit, looking up at Lovett and Ronan. 

“Everyone in the Farrow family seems to be under the impression that I am on the verge of marrying the two of you,” Tommy says semi-hysterically. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that?”

“Why didn’t anyone tell _us_ that, Thomas?” Ronan shoots back. “I wouldn’t have told Quincy that you wanted EDIBLE UNDERWEAR for Christmas if I had known she thought I was proposing to you!” 

Lovett falls over on the bed nearly crying with laughter. “So that’s why Quincy asked me if all brothers were weird with their sisters, or just hers? To have been a fly on the wall when she called Steph!” 

“Oh my GOD,” Tommy says over Ronan’s gulping laughter. “Your sister thinks we’re dating too?” Lucca barks at this, causing more laughter from Ronan and Lovett. 

“That’s literally the only way I can interpret this text,” Lovett says, pulling his phone out of his pocket and waving it at Tommy.

Tommy catches Lovett’s flailing hands and pauses to enjoy the warmth. It’s hard for him to let go and not linger on the enjoyment of holding Lovett’s hands. But Tommy takes the phone and taps in Lovett’s passcode to unlock it and read Stephanie’s text before throwing it back at Lovett and banging his head into the door. “Where does your sister think I’ve been that her first thought is that we should use protection?” he protests, trying not to turn bright red. “I don’t think I’ve gotten laid in over a year.”

“Don’t worry, Thomas,” Ronan says with a smirk. “We know you’re not that kind of a girl.” 

Tommy spends a brief moment wishing that he was that kind of a girl, one who could make a move and see where it might lead him.

During dinner that night, Tommy hides with Dylan and Evangeline talking about building boats in bottles, pretending not to hear Lovett and Ronan talking around Tommy’s recent house hunting adventures with Mia and Fletcher. “Don’t worry,” Dylan says sympathetically, gesturing around the room at the boisterous group of people Mia has assembled as her family over the years, “I completely understand wanting to have your own space. Don’t let Ronan and Jon push too hard on living with them - relationships can look like anything.” 

“And Uncle Jon and Uncle Ronan will love you no matter what,” Evangeline pipes up, returning from her trek to the kitchen for dessert. 

“Obviously we’ll love Uncle Tommy no matter what,” Lovett says over Tommy’s shoulder as Tommy tries not to jump out of his skin. “Mind if we steal him away?”

“I GUESS,” Evangeline says magnanimously. “As long as you promise that we’ll start building that boat tomorrow.”

Tommy offers a solemn fist bump of promise as Dylan and Lovett try to cover the smiles on their faces. “First thing after cookie baking.”

Tommy takes his coat from Lovett’s hand, collects Lucca from where she’s napping at Evangeline’s feet, and lets himself be led out to the gazebo by the lake where Ronan was waiting. “This place is like something out of a movie,” Tommy says while carefully sitting himself more than an arm's length away from Ronan. “Did your mom do that on purpose, or did the world fashion itself around her desires, like something out of a storybook?”

“As flattering as it is, I am not actually sure how I feel about my mom being a literal wizard,” Ronan says dryly, putting his arm out to let Lovett to curl into his side, Pundit curling up in his lap. “Listen, we wanted to check in with you about the room. There’s no reason for us to spend the whole week making you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not,” Tommy says, holding shock still and feeling his heart beating in his chest under the knowing looks from both of them. 

“Tommy,” Lovett says, exasperated. “I saw the look on your face when Mia showed us to the room. You’ve been using Lucca as a shield ever since we got here, at least when you’re not using Ronan’s family as a shield.”

Tommy curls into himself on the bench, wishing that it wouldn’t be too obvious to stand up and take Lucca off of Ronan’s leg. “I haven’t! And I’m not. Uncomfortable.”

“So you’re saying if we went up to go to sleep right now, you’d actually sleep,” Lovett says, skepticism dripping from his voice.

“No, I probably wouldn’t,” Tommy admits, looking down at his feet.

“Hah!” Lovett says triumphantly. 

“But,” Tommy says, feeling it slip out despite himself. They all sit with the silence for what might be the longest minute in Tommy’s life, while Tommy takes deep breaths and tries not to explode his relationship with his closest friends.

“This is a safe space, Thomas,” Ronan says without a hint of irony, and Tommy catches sight of him cuddling closer to Lovett as he looks up from where he’s been studying the wood on the floor of the gazebo. His chest hurts from how much love he has for both of them. 

Tommy looks over at the two of them, seeing the way that Lovett is clutching Pundit like a lifeline. Remembers the way that Ronan had invited him to spend Christmas with them saying that he should spend it “with people who love you.” Thinks about Lovett saying that they’d love him “no matter what.” And so he takes a deep breath, attempts to channel the part of him that wishes that he were that girl, and says, “I probably wouldn’t be sleeping because I’d be thinking about kissing you.”

Pundit yelps a little as Lovett says, “Who is the you there, that feels vital. Sorry, baby girl,” he continues as he puts her down on the floor of the gazebo, Lucca jumping down to follow.

“Hey, don’t hurt my dog-niece because I’m bad at feelings,” Tommy says, leaning down to pick up Pundit and bury his face in her fur. “I don’t know, either of you? Both of you?” It was almost a relief to hear himself finally saying what he had been dancing around for the better part of a year. Maybe they would say no, but at least he would finally know. 

“Can you say that one more time, without the fur in your mouth?” Ronan says. “Because that sounds like you don’t want a new room for the same reason that we’d like you to not have a new room.”

“Mr. Pultizer,” Tommy says, letting himself start to hope. “You always want that pull quote.”

“Nominee,” Ronan protests as Lovett sits up, pulling away from his side, and stares at Tommy with intent. 

“I swear, if you don’t say something that makes sense in the next thirty seconds, I’m taking our dogs back and we’re going to let you sleep in the gazebo alone tonight,” Lovett says.

“I think it would be really cool to kiss you both, if you were into it,” Tommy says, meeting Lovett’s eyes. 

“What, do you want us to rock, paper, scissors for it?” Lovett says in a tone that somehow exactly matches the feeling in Tommy’s brain— a little bit of elation, a soupçon of confusion, a dash of fear.

“Or,” Ronan says, standing up and walking over to stand in front of Tommy. “I could claim my right to kiss Tommy first, on account of being the only person who didn’t get to hold Pundit during this conversation.”

Tommy nods, dazed, as Ronan bends over to kiss him, holding his face with both hands like he was something precious and special. At some point (Tommy isn’t quite sure when, time has taken on a magical quality since he entered the gazebo) Lovett moves over to sit next to Tommy to claim “my kiss next,” putting Pundit down as he pulls Tommy over. 

Tommy gets lost in kissing Lovett until he feels Ronan nuzzling up his neck. “My turn again?” Ronan asks with a dorky smile right before Pundit starts barking, clearly wanting in on the fun. 

Tommy starts laughing at the disgruntled look on Lovett’s face. “Baby girl,” Lovett croons, pulling away from Tommy’s mouth with a reluctance that is gratifying as hell, “We’re going to let you go frolic in the fields with Lucca while we debauch Tommy here. Does that sound like a plan?”

“If there’s going to be debauching, can it please happen in our room?” Tommy asks, turning beet red. “As picturesque as a snow-covered gazebo by a frozen pond in Connecticut is, I don’t actually want to freeze my dick off.” 

Ronan reaches out a hand to Tommy, who takes it and reaches out his other hand to Lovett. As they walk back to the house, attempting to figure out which entrance would take them past the fewest amount of people, Ronan pauses. “Look, this all is probably going a bit fast, but also, if you wanted to stop house hunting and make our home your home, Pundit would like it.”

“Yeah,” Lovett says from Tommy’s other side. “I don’t know what would happen if you took Lucca away from Pundit now, but it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“OK,” Tommy says, his heart swelling with happiness. “I’ll move in with you both. For Lucca and Pundit.”


End file.
